MalonEmail: Big Wheel, Keep on Turnin'
“Stop mourning the work that's been tainted by shitty men and start mourning the work we lost from the people they targeted.” — Caroline Framke
Greetings, fellow cyborgs. Somehow, it is nearly Thanksgiving??? This is deeply disturbing to me! Maybe it's because I'm a freelancer who talks to her dog and sometimes only her dog all day, but this revelation also made me realize how often I simply don't bother to look at the date at all these days, which has made it much easier to squander my time in bulk. Pretty depressing to realize an event you're referencing in conversation as having happened last week actually happened a month ago! SO, I'm going to be attempting to be more ~present~ (shut up) in the months ahead. I'm sure that will mean jotting down notes about my daily accomplishments and calling it "journaling" for a few weeks before falling off the horse again, but what matters is GETTING BACK ON, right? RIGHT?
In any case, overall conditions have actually been improving these past few weeks (just knocked on my wooden kitchen table, just in case). Thanks to some mental health magic, I've been able to accomplish a decent amount of quality work, which you'll be able to read below, if you haven't. The weather is cooling off, which means being able to go outside without hissing at the sun. I finally got a better ($12 at Target) pillow and started using a sleep app. And in a fit of frustration, I went and chopped off my hair for the third or fourth time in my life and dyed it back to its (spiritually) natural state, video-game-character red. It's been almost a month and I still could not be happier about it:
*Kevin Gnapoor voice* HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?! Actually, nevermind, I don't care. Let's move along to the more interesting bits, shall we?
All she wrote:
Well, for Pitchfork, I interviewed Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile about every track on the record they made together, in the vestry of Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, which is objectively one of the greatest venues in Los Angeles.
Then one of my heroes, mortician and death-positive advocate Caitlin Doughty, came out with her second book last month, and I had the immense pleasure of speaking to her about it for Marie Claire. Run, don't walk, to read her wisdom, both in my interview and in the book, From Here to Eternity.
After a couple years' break, I am also back writing at The Verge, which has been a damn delight so far. First, my dystopia crusades continued with a topic that has long been on my list of stuff to ruin for you: The Jetsons, which is actually a blood-curdling dystopian nightmare. (I'm assuming the universe thought I needed a break, because same week I pitched the idea, it turned out a new comic reboot from DC Comics and Hanna-Barbera was about to be released.)
Then, I explained how Hollywood's reboot/nostalgia culture hamstrings mainstream science fiction, particularly in franchises like Star Trek where creators are going out of their way to retcon stuff despite the fact that the shows' motto is boldly going where no one has gone before.
This happened, too, which, after the thread of 2015 wherein he told me I could put "makes the Rock laugh" on my resume, means Dwayne and I are officially BFFs:
All she read:
This list has been heavily condensed, just FYI. There has been so much impactful writing over the past month it's been impossible to keep up with it all. (If anyone has any speed-reading tips that don't involve Matrix-style direct downloading to the brain, please let me know. Actually, let me know if that option is available too, for that matter.) Since last MalonEmail, I have also been a-bloggin', so there's two good lists of other reading over there if you need even more tabs.
One of the best takes on the Louis C.K. thing and the rotting corpse that is male comedy came from Drew Magary, to my surprise. (Another was Lindy West's, but that's a given 'round these parts.) Both Caroline Framke and Amanda Hess frame the real cost of beloved harassers' behavior and the ostracism that comes from speaking up perfectly. Amanda Robb and a team of reporters broke down every inch of Pizzagate, and the resulting rollingstone.com feature is really crucial to understanding how the internet works in this era. Charlie Jane Anders (whose book All the Birds in the Sky is a delight, btw) wrote this devastating short story that you should just read without any context because I said so.
I've also been listening to Raúl Esparza read me Stephen King's Under the Dome, which has been equal parts soothing (I reiterate: Raúl Esparza) and deeply disturbing, since it's 100% about white heteropatriarchy and Trump's America even though it was published in 2009. (Word to the wise: do not watch the CBS TV adaptation.) I'm also also reading The Book of Dust Vol. 1: La Belle Sauvage, the His Dark Materials prequel Philip Pullman just published, but I'm taking it extra, extra slowly, mostly because I really need to stay in this parallel universe where your soul exists outside your body in talking animal form and the world is (probably) not (yet) such a fetid hellscape—for as long as possible. Also: Pullman stories are like tis-the-season stories for atheists.
Then here's 27 men of color hotter than Blake "Balsa Wood For a Face" Shelton, just 'cause.
All she saw (and heard):
Thor: Ragnarok is a masterpiece of international cinema so beautiful I saw it twice. At the Arclight. Both times. That is how good Thor: Ragnarok is. It also inspired my roommate Kaitlyn to finally force me to watch What We Do in the Shadows, the vampire mockumentary co-written and -directed by Taika Waititi, the director of Ragnarok (also objectively the most attractive human on earth), which shot to the top of my favorite movie list the moment I realize I was scream-cry-laughing just five minutes in.
I also had the privilege of attending the L.A. premiere of Guillermo Del Toro's new movie The Shape of Water which made me cry and also gave me the opportunity to:
unwittingly trip Crispin Glover on our way around the red carpet, and
glimpse Hollywood Sleeper Cell Doug Jones™ in the flesh, wearing some sort of Neo-from-the-Matrix tunic?
It was truly remarkable and I loved every second of it. (Oh, and the movie is good too—if also bizarrely kinky in that Del Toro signature style.)
Regarding TV, I surprised myself by burning through and actually enjoying the Netflix series Mindhunter this past weekend, but I'm glad I did because it allowed me to deeply enjoy this piece by my colleague Angelica Jade Bastién about its explorations of toxic masculinity. Also highly recommend American Vandal to all my southern California friends (think Inside SoCal meets Serial), and The Exorcist show to friends who need a good dose of relatively creepy horror (and hotties).
And for the love of god, if you're not watching Star Trek: Discovery and The Good Place already, I have to conclude that you either don't enjoy being happy or you're planning on getting to it today.
P.S. (Parting Shot):
It's tiiiiiiiiiime for a plug! I was recently a guest on Slayerfest '98, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast, alongside my good friend Rachel Vorona Cote! We talked about the episode "Doppelgangland" and I professed my undying love for Anyanka. You can listen to that here.
I also recently joined another good friend, writer and activist Katie Klabusich, on her radio show to talk about the thing I talk about best: dystopian fiction and why sci-fi keeps disappointing us! It airs LIVE (omg, radio) this Saturday, so if you're so inclined, click on over to Netroots Radio at 4 p.m. PT. If you're not, it will be available at the same link as a podcast on Monday morning. Be sure to write in to tell me how great I was.
...But seriously. Go on, do it.